OLD NOTEBOOKS: There’s a sense of sky, thoughts like clouds drifting through the vast space in the head… but I really don’t want to call it anything; giving things names gives them an identity and what happens next is, I become the ‘happy’ feeling. Feeling “happy” creates a ‘self’ where there wasn’t one before – “I” want to be happy, and don’t want to be ‘sad’, or unhappy. So maybe everything was okay before that ‘happy’ word arrived.
Something deeply understood by every human being in the world is the thought: ‘I am the only one that’s ‘me’, somehow ignoring the overwhelming fact that 7 billion people feel the same way. These days I’m returning to my old notebooks written when I was first discovering Buddhism, it’s this sudden PHN physical condition that’s throwing things all over the place and I need to remember how it all began. It really…
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Sue being overly modest… she’s really a very good photographer; and nine-tenths is in the ‘seeing’.
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River of the Sun, Chapter Eleven – Inundation
“Vessel of Sekhmet, take our chosen priest-to-be and show him the path of initiation that lies ahead.”
Firmly within the power of her magic, Amkhren felt the unspoken command to continue looking at the high priestess. His senses were so heightened that he could feel the approach of the severe Vessel of Sekhmet long before fingers that felt like claws came to rest on his shoulders. Her voice spoke through his skin, as though an animal ghost had entered his backbone and was playing him like an instrument. Wordlessly, with light-fingered touches, the lioness turned him. For a second, he gazed into the feral eyes, set into green flesh, then drank the wild beauty of the exotic fabrics flowing over her glowing skin. The red-gold orb with its descending cobra that topped the headdress inclined slightly towards him, and the slightest flicker of a smile played across lips whose inner skills began with portraying savagery as well as gentler arts.
She bent him to his knees, facing the six-pointed figure that framed the centre of the temple with its mysterious rays.
“Kneel before the sacred figure, priest-to-be. Face the centre of your life!”
Before him, set in blue lapis stones within the glittering mosaic of the floor, was a beautiful triangular shape that made up the very heart of the temple, yet connected with the other six points of the innermost circle, making an inner ring of nine, whose extensions, outward from the altar in the centre, formed the radiating symmetry of the whole chamber and its two, larger rings.
Although the figures of Mut and, behind her, the spread of the wings of ancient Isis, dominated the East, here in the centre the geometry defined a different type of space. Set in gold holders, which shone like the sun in the darkness, were three large candles, their flames burning peacefully as the rite unfolded. The flames defined the three points of the inner sanctum. The single point facing him was the inner East, and beyond that lay only a large silver bowl, raised on a plinth of white crystal, which housed a small sea of pure water, with a surface so calm that it was difficult to see that the silver vessel contained any liquid at all…But it did, for those who knew where to look…
The Vessel of Sekhmet was speaking again, “Observe the approach of the season of Akhet – inundation. The inner life of the great river spills over into the lives of men and women, providing for everyone’s needs. This has been your life for the past seven years, working for the temple, which, in turn, fed you and clothed you. Tonight the waters of your inner life will burst through the banks of your previous experience and into the quiet pastures of your outer life… tonight, if you are ready, we will ride this flood…”
Amkhren felt himself drifting into a trance as the Vessel of Sekhmet’s words filled his mind. Floating, he could see beyond the walls of the temple to the great river he had always loved, watching the spring waters as they overcame the meagre banks and spilled onto the flat plains that fed Egypt. As he followed his vision, the flood waters receded, leaving the land black with the gift the waters had carried from distant and fertile places – the dark soil that gave Egypt its reverential name – Kemet, the Black Land.
Sekhmet’s voice rose in intensity. “Expect nothing to be same again!” She let the words fall away, then said, “Rise! One who would be priest. Journey with me around the circle of the year.”
Amkhren felt his soul pull back from the image of the great river, through the great pylons of the temple entrance, on through the huge doors and over the glistening water of the central altar. Something was happening in the temple… something unlike anything he had ever known. The sense of power infused everything around him. His skin crackled with the flow of that energy around the inner circle where the vessels stood, watching him intently, focussed entirely on him. Would his simple soul be able to hold this, he wondered?
Rising from his knees, to legs suddenly leaden, Amkhren stayed perfectly still. As though sensing this, Sekhmet placed a firm hand on his upper arm, guiding him, clockwise, around the inner circle to face the Vessel of Hathor at the next radial point.
“Honour to you, priest to be.” said the woman in the red robe, head resplendent with the same solar disc as Sekhmet, but held in the grip of a pair of horns. “Let the nurturing and healing energies of the Goddess Hathor wash through the pains of your life, bringing you fresh to this moment, as great Ra rises anew each day.
Amkhren bowed to the vision of compassion before him, then in youthful boldness, looked up and tried to read the eyes that understood the heart of kindness – but his arm was taken with great force by Sekhmet, who pulled him around the inner circle to face Anzety, the High Priest. Anzety–he of the calm counsel, always there to walk and talk with, now radiant and waiting…
“Honour to you, priest to be,” said the Vessel of Khonsu. The old god of the moon, elevated to renewed status by Seti in a glorious act of reconciliation to wipe from history those doomed attempts to take the gods from the people. Anzety had, over many years, explained the complex history of this god-form… now, Amkhren knew why…
“Honour to you, priest to be,” said the tall man with the green skin, his head a dome of pure silver. The god-form shook the crook and flail that he carried. The sound made Amkhren shake with its power. “Behold the seed of the future,” said Khonu. “Here you will learn that, in the presence of the Gods, doing begins somewhere other than the muscles of the body…”
Amkhren looked up to read the eyes of the friend he had come to trust above all others, but the strong arms of Sekhmet spun him round to face the centre of the temple, again.
“Kneel before the sacred third point!”
Amkhren fell to his knees and, once again, faced the clear lake of tranquillity at the temple’s centre. But, this time, the sense of potency within his young soul threatened to overwhelm him…
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Index to previous chapters:
Chapter One – Gifts From the River
Chapter Two – An Agony of Sunset
Chapter Three – The Dark Waters
Chapter Four – Touching the Sky
Chapter Five – The Fire Within
Chapter Seven – The Crystal Air
Chapter Eight – The Unchosen Darkness
Chapter Nine – The Priestess Calls
Chapter Ten – Darkness at the Door
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Introduction to River of the Sun
In April 2015 a group of people gathered in the Derbyshire hills to enact the Silent Eye’s annual Mystery Play, entitled, The River of the Sun. The five-act mystical drama formed the backbone of that Spring weekend, and told the fictional story of a clash of ego and divinity set in an Isis-worshipping temple located on an island in the Nile, during the the fascinating period of the 19th dynasty, the time of Rameses the Great.
The 18th and 19th dynasties were a time of upheaval for ancient Egypt on many levels. The reign of the ‘Heretic King’ Akhenaten saw Egypt’s religious structure torn apart, as the revolutionary Pharaoh became what Wallis Budge called the ‘world’s first monotheist’; re-fashioning the power of the many Gods with one supreme entity – the visible sun disc, the Aten, for which Akhenaten, alone, was the high priest. Many have pointed to the failure of the ‘herectic’ Pharaoh’s politics, but few have doubted the sincerity of his religious vision. He will, forever, remain an enigma.
Whatever the nobility of his goal, the actions he took were ruthless, and included the shutting down of the annual deity festivals which were the sole point of ritualistic contact between the ordinary people of Egypt and their locally-worshipped gods. In addition, Akhenaten paid little attention to the domestic and military affairs of Egypt, allowing the country’s enemies to encroach on its borders, greatly weakening Egypt’s power at that critical time for the region.
After Akhenaten’s brief reign, culminating in the Pharaoh’s mysterious death, shadowy military forces took control of Egypt, instigating the 19th dynasty in the persons of Rameses I and, soon thereafter, Seti I, whose throne name derives from the god Set – often considered the ‘evil one’ because of his slaying of his brother, Osiris.
Seti I is judged by modern historians as having been one of the greatest-ever pharaohs, yet his importance in the 19th dynasty was eclipsed by the actions of his second son, the brilliant Rameses II, whose long reign of over sixty years included much self-promotion and the alteration of Egypt’s recent history. Both Seti and Rameses II (Rameses the Great) were passionate about the evisceration of the last traces of Akhenaten’s ‘chaos’, as they saw it.
But, although, by the 19th dynasty, the the ‘Son of the Sun’ was long dead and the buildings of his embryonic and doomed city of Tel-al-Armana were reduced to rubble, something of that time remained in the Egyptian consciousness. A new kind of connection between Pharaoh and God had been established, one which elevated mankind, if only in the being of the Pharaoh, to be someone who ‘talked with God’. It was, at the very least, a bold experiment and, though the world would have to wait until the 19th century to re-discover the ‘erased’ pharaoh, the philosophical waves of that period rippled out and dramatically affected the way the incoming 19th dynasty had to repair the worship of the Gods, uniting the people of Egypt under a trinity of Amun-Ra, Khonsu and Mut.
Our fictional story is a tale of politics, friendships, mind and faith. It is set against an historically accurate background, and at a time when Rameses was due to take the throne from the dying Seti .
Returning to Thebes in his swift warship, crewed by his fearsome Talatat mind-warriors, Rameses decides to mount a surprise night-time raid on the island-based Isis temple which has prospered under the sponsoring reign of his father. Rameses suspects that the inner teachings conducted by the revered High Priestess and Priest conceal views that relate to the thoughts of the heretic Pharaoh, Akhenaten. He plans to insert himself and his warriors of the mind into the islands’s Spring rites as the high priest and priestess begin a cycle of initiation for a chosen apprentice priest who has proved himself worthy of special advancement.
The resulting clash draws everyone, including the young Pharaoh-in-Rising, into a spiralling situation where each is forced to confront their own fears as well as living out the roles which life has allocated them. River of the Sun is the story of a spiritual and political encounter from which none emerge unchanged, including the man who will shortly be Pharaoh, the mighty Rameses II, whose secret name for himself is ‘the unchosen’.
Through the eyes and minds of those surrounding the chosen priest and the ‘unchosen’ Pharaoh, the River of the Sun takes us on a tense and compelling journey to the heart of power and its eternal struggle with truth.
The chapters of the book will be serialised in this blog. The finished work is planned to be available in paperback and Kindle in the Spring of 2016.
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River of the Sun, serialised here, and its associated images, is the intellectual property of Stephen Tanham and is ©Copyright material.
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+ Ancient Landscapes, Bakewell Jail, Ben's Bit, Doomsday series of books, esoteric psychology, Silent Eye School
Ben’s Bit, part 10 – Six Faces of Fear
by Steve Tanham
There is fury in Bakewell Gaol. Outside my cell, doors are being flung open, tables are being thumped and voices are raised in what serves as the interview room. Despite pressing my ear to the shuttered grill, through which Yellow Eyes often studies my incarcerated movements, I can never quite make out the details of the heated conversations.
They wouldn’t be that stupid…
How long has it been now? Several weeks, at least, since I lost my liberty and was thrown into this once proud but now rotting stone hole. The days have become grey. The word reminds me of one of my main adversaries, the good Doctor, who shares the name ‘Grey’; the same colour as my faceless remand uniform. Dr Grey seems to be at the centre of this storm. I catch his footsteps and snippets of his voice as he takes his ‘guests’ down the corridor and into the rooms beyond. It’s a poor place, Bakewell Gaol, but, for once, its paucity of facilities is hurting them more than me.
From the snippets of his voice I can tell he’s beginning to get very flustered. it would be funny were it not precipitous – if he slides down the mountain of complexity they have created out of a simple incident, who will replace him? Better the devil, perhaps…
I make some assumptions and end up marvelling at the problems that a helpless man can create. How did I do this to them? I ask myself, pretending to have a power I do not believe I possess…
Them… What do I know of them? I pretend I’m playing a murder mystery game… actually shouting out to prove I exist, to try, however hopelessly, to impact the frantic process outside. What have I got to lose?
I begin to wind up my pretend audience in the envisaged manner of a Victorian music hall ‘chairman’, “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” I begin. “on Character Card One we have the renowned Dr Grey,” I sneer. “in the thick of it – technically in charge of the investigation into the sanity of the villain, an ex-businessman who swapped respect for the theft, no, relocation of an ancient stone; oh, and yes,” I lower my voice conspiratorially and shake my head. “who shot out the lights near Bakewell’s All Saint’s church, to cover his tracks – like that worked!” …sniggers of approval from the appreciative audience as the narrator spins to include them all in this travesty of an foredoomed incident.
I pace around the edge of my vast room – it takes all of ten strides – shouting, “Card Two: We have Dr Grey’s assistant, the lovely, silky black haired and very sexy – yes even in here…” I make my voice curl up in tone “…seeeexy Miss Golding, known locally as Miss Goodnight of the heels!” I make sure the words are aimed with maximum energy at the narrow grill, my communication plate with the outside world, meagre though it is.
I pause for breath, drawing myself taller with the intake. “Character Card three!” I’m really getting into this. For a second I hear a noise outside my cell and wonder if someone has come out from one of the frantic ‘meetings’ to listen to the lunatic in Cell One… but the noise does not continue, so I resume my creative rant. “Character Card three is the famous Yellow Eyes – our local guard here in Bakewell Gaol – a dour fellow, big as a tree and strong as an ox.” I turn my voice into a hiss as I spin to share the deadly picture. “Not a man to be crossed!” I nod as the spinning audience hisses with me… it’s like a punch and judy show, what fun…
“Character Card Four is the mysterious prison Guv’nor… whose face has yet to be seen!” I nod, again, as I rotate to face them all, raising my eyebrows. “Does he really exist? Or is he just a convenient bogeyman for Yellow Eyes to refer to during our lunatic’s nighty night stories?” They nod back, wise to the ways of the devious – they’ve seen such plots before…
“Character Card Five is the mysterious figure in the dreams, in the visions and possibly…” I wait to play my ace… “the source of the confusion outside!” I smile, showing them the vast reserves I still have left in this battle. “Oh yes… a rich and powerful figure… or is he just a figment of a sad mind, too long locked in this dreadful place?” They have sympathy, but one or two of them prod each other as if to say, look, he knows something he’s not supposed to… It’s an interesting development, and even I’m surprised that this has surfaced at this point. Perhaps the techniques of mystical disconnectedness have thrown up another fact, like the time my inner enquiry threw up the knowledge that Yellow Eyes was actually a church warden of All Saints, and therefore personally hurt by my heinous crime…
“Card Six, ladies and gentlemen, the last…” I make them wait. “Is…” But the sound of a large key opening the old and well oiled lock of my cell door overcomes the high point of the performance.
Yellow Eyes is standing there. I suspect he had been there for some time – sent by ‘the meeting’ to investigate the shouting. He pushes the door so that it opens, slowly, swinging on its full arc and crunching into the crumbling plaster of the ancient cell. This is new… he’s never deliberately damaged part of his kingdom before. Standing perfectly still, he glares at me. Every cell in my body wants to back up against the far wall – somewhere I’m supposed to retreat to on his entrance, but I have noticed that there is something else new about him… His face is streaked with sweat. He’s a man of unpleasant hygiene at the best of times, but I’ve never seen him look like this before.
With nothing to lose, I actually feel myself walking towards him… As I get closer I can hear his breathing – it’s ragged with rage. His eyes widen as I approach, fearlessly – or insanely – studying the sweating mountain of a man.
His hands curl into fists as I close the distance. I can see he’s fighting for breath… I envisage the three steps that will bring me face to face with his enraged hugeness, and begin to walk to my death…
“Sorry,” says the little man, who darts through the gap between Yellow Eyes’ legs and the old iron door frame. “The agency sent me on the last minute,” he continues. “… in response to a call from the Governor.” He rolls his eyes and comes to stand between me and the beast in the doorway. “I’m to do what I can to clean the place up for you… make you feel a bit more… looked after…” he looks up at me, apologetically. For a second I wonder if I’m hallucinating, wonder if Yellow Eyes has dealt me a thunder-blow to the head and I’m really lying in the corner of the cell with a broken brain and blood dripping from what’s left of my nose.
But I’m not… and, in a further surreal twist, when I look beyond the diminutive newcomer, the doorway is empty… Yellow Eyes is gone.
“Sorry,” says the little man in front of me. “Didn’t mean to barge in like that, but you looked like you could use a distraction!” He chuckles…
I can’t take this any more, and begin to laugh hysterically… My visitor pats me on the back, heartily. “Excellent approach,” he says “Best way – laugh it all off, after all who’s to say what’s real and what’s not?”
I fall back on the bed, still rocking with the sheer madness of all this…. but there’s an intense feeling of what I can only call ‘gladness’ about his presence.
“Marco,” he says, holding out his hand. “Just Marco…” His thin lips curl into a smile and, for a second, he reminds me of a character in an old black and white film where a humble detective of his stature proved to be unkillable; and the baddies all went to jail while he walked away at the end, laughing and whistling… and very much alive.
I take his hand and manage a thank you. I set out to say hello but thank you comes out.
“You rest up now and I’ll clean this place up,” he says, putting down his large bag of cleaning implements and materials. “Be amazed what a spring clean can do to a troubled soul.” He coughs apologetically before continuing. “And I know how dusty these old places can get…”
What is this? I wonder. What card has fate played me here? The very air in the cell has changed at the presence of this small and swarthy man. I study him further, though it is hard to do–there seems to be an indefiniteness about his features, as though they are continually shifting from within. His skin is mediterranean – old but vital. His brown eyes are furtive but full of humour. The small frame is slight but wiry, and, for some reason, completely at odds with the white “Clean Genie – Best Prices!” uniform he’s wearing.
I lie back, exhausted beyond comprehension. The last thing I remember before oblivion takes me is the soothing sound of his brush as it takes a layer of dust from my floor and into his pan.
When I wake up, several hours later, he has gone – long gone, I suspect. The only sign of his former presence is a can of rose-scented spray. ‘Compliments of the Genie’ is written on a small business card propped up against it… But, beneath the can, and almost invisible in the shadows, is a copy of something called Peak Past…
<See index below for other parts of this story>
———————————————————–< to be continued-
Ben’s Bit is a continuing first-person narrative of the character created by Stuart France and Sue Vincent, which may bear some relation to the author of this story, Steve Tanham, their fellow director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness. In the latest of their books, Scions of Albion, Ben is arrested for his overly enthusiastic part in a mad escapade, and the other two are nowhere to be seen . . . For more, enjoy their Doomsday series of books, and the new series (Lands of Exile) beginning soon. Click here for details.
Index to Ben’s Bits:
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine,
Sue Vincent describes her and Stuart’s perspective on Ben’s imprisonment: Part One, Part Two
The Doomsday Series of books by Stuart France and Sue Vincent
The Silent Eye School of Consciousness – a modern mystery school.
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+ Greek Myths, Heracles, Hercules, Higher Mind, Journey of the hero, Labours of Hercules, Mystery Schools, myths and spirituality, Silent Eye School, Uncategorized
Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee, part 44 – The Enemy Within
by Steve Tanham
Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee, part 44 – The Enemy Within
.Alexandra.
I had found the Lion in the window of a charity shop. It was a combination scarf, handbag and, now, hat…
“I’m assuming that’s a lion you’re wearing?” asked John, when I sat down with my coffee and two butter knives.
“Sorry about that,” I replied. “Best I could do – found it in a charity shop and it needed a bit of TLC and a good wash!”
“Washed the stuffing out of it?”
“More of less. I fear its debut will be its swan song, but, heh, it was worth the pound it cost me, just for the look on your face…”
We both sipped our coffees, each looking at the other warily. I liked that–liked that he could no longer predict all my moves. Just to keep him on his toes, I took the knives and crossed them over each other in the middle of the table, so they were shaped like a St Andrew’s cross.
“We’re having hot cross buns?” he asked, knowing we weren’t, but little else.
“Do we usually have hot cross buns?” I asked, unreasonably.
“A very confined fencing match, then?”
I chuckled. “To the death then…” It was the only sense I could make of the myth – that it was a fight to the death, only one of them could win… Heracles or the lion.
He looked exasperated. Oh good, I thought.
Not wanting to give more away without him having to work for it, I kicked him a snippet. “A fight to the death, then…”
John looked up from reading the back of his coffee cup. “Ah, a fight… so we are doing the Nemean Lion?”
I didn’t mean to gush at that point but the sheer frustration of trying to fathom the myth had got to me. “Yes, we are… and it’s a sod!”
“I’ll grant you it’s not obvious…” he said, looking like he really did want to help. I’ll give him that – his youthful propensity to sulk, remembered from my teens, had diminished with age.
“It’s less than obvious–its despicable,” I said. “A fearsome lion terrorises a region of the county, Heracles is told he must kill it. He discards all the weapons he’s been given, except the club he made himself. Finally, he corners it in a cave – but the cave has two entrances so the lion keeps escaping. To reduce his chances to zero he lays down even his club and enters the cave with no weapons, strangling it with his bare hands… job done.”
“Are we getting a little frustrated with Heracles on this one?”
I was tense, he was right. I could find no meaningful start point for decoding this myth.
“Want a clue?” he persisted.
I nodded, then breathed out, noisily, and sipped my coffee. Rose appeared and John signalled we might need two more.
“Saviours were often described as being born in caves…” John said.
“Saviours…” I mused. “But isn’t Heracles the Saviour?”
“Well, yes, of course,” he said. “But is Heracles singular.”
“Of course,” I said, engaging mouth before brain. “There’s just one of…” and then I saw it – saw that Heracles was, of course all such figures; all aspirants on this path. I looked up to see John smiling, warmly, at me. “Born in a cave…” I whispered. “Like you know who..”
“Like many such you know whos.” he said.
“But he wasn’t born in that cave, he just went in after the Lion – after lighting a fire at the other end to block it!”
It was obvious I had lost my ‘edge’ with this one. Nothing was connecting as it had before the previous visit.
“And in how many ways are people said to be ‘born’?” He smiled and took the new coffees from Rose.
I sat up, catching the edge of the meaning he was trying to convey. “So, something happened in the cave; something that Heracles had to do in the ‘darkness of an interior?”
John winced at hot coffee taken too soon. “Now you’re getting somewhere!”
“But why fight a lion – apart from the obvious?”
“I think you need to go and look up lions,” he said. “Or I’ll end up telling you the whole thing and spoiling it…”
I nodded at this wisdom. For once, we drank and laughed and exchanged small talk.
“Bring Leo back with you next week,” he said as he kissed me on the paw…
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Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee is usually published on Thursdays.
All images and text ©International copyright, The Silent Eye School of Consciousness, 2016.
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I’m not really a ‘pub’ person. I love a glass of wine or three, and an occasional pint of beer; but I’m not a regular at our local pub. One of the reasons for that is, probably, that it’s a half hour walk away in this sodden part of Cumbria, and the journey usually involves a walk in total darkness to get home. Not that such a stroll is a problem in itself, just that when you’re faced with that versus a glass of wine at home in the warm comfort and your favourite and deeply understanding settee, well, you get my drift…
But, increasingly, I miss the sort of ‘chaps’ camaraderie that used to grace the occasional visit to various pubs in my former, gainfully employed years. Being dropped off for a ‘Sesh’ (our word for a drinking session) was one of the occasional highlights of the year – particularly in the run-up to Christmas.
I’m not complaining – I love my new life as a writer and one of the Silent Eye’s directors, and we certainly make up for any interim lack of camaraderie when the group of us who run the School get together for one of our workshops. Everyone’s invited of course, the more the merrier…
But back to the chaps thing. This Christmas, whose memory is now fading so fast into fuzzy history, we had a lovely meal with three friends. One was my wife’s sister, Joanne, the other two, Tony and Mary, were family friends of the two sisters and have recently got back in touch. Tony is now retired but spent his working life in complex parts of the world delivering amazingly complex civil engineering projects with scant resources. He’s my sort of person, and has the sort of gritty humour born of the constant facing of such adversity.
Ensconced in our ‘local’ pub, The Strickland Arms, for a pre-Christmas meal, he and I, surrounded by the gentle conversation of the ladies, began to actually talk, rather than just passing the time in pleasantries. Within an astonishing hour, we were deep in the nature of the human psyche, both amazed that the other shared the same pathways of conclusions and wonderings. Stopping for the essential lubrication of a second pint of bitter, we then ventured into our favourite amusing ‘pet-hates’.
And that’s when the fickle finger surfaced.
I had better explain… I am a self-confessed techno-lover. I have always gained deep pleasure and satisfaction from the creative power endowed by a personal computer. I count myself blessed to be incarnated into a generation which has seen the capability of such devices evolve from the humble word processor, to the sort of creative power offered by modern image and presentation software. As an amateur photographer, what I can do with a simple image taken on my iPhone astonishes me.
My techno-armoury includes an Apple Mac, an Apple iPhone and a Retina-screened iPad. I am lucky to have such devices at my disposal. Conscious of this, I do my best to share the fruits of their power with anyone interesting in my musings… It’s a kind of duty, and a very pleasant one.
But I have an issue… and increasingly, it’s driving me crazy; as part two of our impromptu sesh at the pub went on to consider.
My MacBook has one of the best finger-tracking devices I’ve ever used. I’ve stopped using a mouse at all – and I never thought I’d say that- because the exactness of using the MacBook’s trackpad is so delightful… and that extends to doing drawings and editing photos as well. So I know what Apple can do, given the will.
But here’s the rub. I bought my iPad so that I would always have a smart and creative device with me when I travel. The iPad is a leading soldier in the army of ‘persuaders’ that are trying to get us away from conventional laptops… and it just doesn’t hack it. Don’t get me wrong, I love browsing on my iPad, it’s brilliant at it, with its high-res screen and ability to sit on your knee with that cup of coffee… but, and it’s a big but, the finger is a rubbish replacement for a mouse… or a trackpad for that matter.
I’ve lost track of the hours I’ve wasted trying to work complex programs that have promised an ‘identical experience’ of the same program that I know and love on my desktop or laptop devices. Identical experience – rubbish! And the worst things is that it’s not the program’s fault, its the useless accuracy of the finger-pointing device in the core operating system.
Get me a small plane and a good pilot and I’ll write it in the sky over Cupertino, “Listen Apple, the rush to dumb down the ‘device’ is leaving behind all those fans who love you so much…” And it’s not just Apple, of course, all the major device manufacturers are moving to ‘finger’ devices in the mistaken belief that you can do the same job on them. Bollocks… Take away our ‘mouses’ at your peril…
The core problem is that the finger is a hundred times wider than the tip of a mouse or trackpad-driven cursor. And there’s no getting round that as far as I know. When I want large scale pointing, I’m happy with my finger tip; when I want accuracy, I want something much more precise…
So come on, Apple; and the rest of you – start shipping optional ‘trackpads’ with our dumbed-down technology and take us out of this finger-pointed misery.
This more of less was the course of the conversation Tony and I had, over the course of the next beer or two, while the ladies, I have to say, seemed glad to be out of it… funny that.
So, my new friend and I have decided that, once a month, I will get on a southbound train at Oxenholme and get off, twelve minutes later, at Lancaster, not far from where he lives. He is tasked with finding an old-fashioned pub, one with no machines ringing bells at what’s left of people’s minds, and graced with a log fire… There, in our new-found snug, we will put to rights the ills of the world, safe in the pleasant glow of a good beer or two. My understanding wife has offered to collect me off the train as long as I can still speak.
It may form the stuff of an occasional ‘curmudgeon’s diary’. I think I’ll call it ‘Sodden Tales..”
I’ll bring the finger and we can decide where to point it on arrival.
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Orphia’s Liar
(inspired by a recent theatre performance)
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He hangs upon the frame of wood
With leather bonds at back and thighs
While she below who kneels and smiles
Need only upward pout her sighs
To see the flame behind the need
And thus give wings to Orphia’s skies
——-
Enmeshed in nature’s plot he aches
And dreams of blood which deeper flows
While past the screen of time she plucks
And through the strings of upturned mind bestows
A deadly trail for he whose flesh is fire
Now caught between the lyre and what it knows
——-
You dare to scourge the Christ? he says
I dare to scourge all Christs! she laughs
I am the wood from which you hang
I am the thorned flax which flies
Towards your skin which holds within
The breath from bonded lips where truth resides
——-
Too slow! she laughs, as silence writhes
Letitia, throw our man into the lair
Let spinning maidens hold him fast
While each one draws a brew so fair
And so reveal, with fleshly squeals
The notes that emptied vessels share
——–
No taste for such excess my love?
His wife, Letitia, says, with glee
Then let us poke and so provoke
To raise your game and straighten knee
And so return the man-child to his stroke
This long awaited, rising fire of oak
——-
And so the show with its tableaux
Comes to rest in time and place
From clapping sounds the stage resounds
For those who now wear smiles of grace
But curling out of meleed flesh is he now free
whose snarl is swapped for different face
——-
Alone within the outer, perfect, dark
She watches, still, as cat draws near
A glowing tyger lit with perfect stripes
Revealed in flowing stages–none of fear
Then hand and claw fold gently into one
And perfect silence fills each listening ear
—
©Copyright Stephen Tanham 2016
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Still time to add your presence to this powerful creation…
‘…I would beget and would be begotten
I would eat and would be eaten
I would hear and would be heard
I would be understood being all understanding.
Dance ye all!…’
– The Round Dance
#5. Heaven in Earth
“In which Gawain returns from his adventure relatively unscathed,
the Veiled One claims her due at Camelot
and the Company of the Table Round enjoy the festivities of the King
and the entertainments of the Lord of the Dance.”
The eyes have been dotted, the tees have been crossed, to all intents and purposes the ‘donkey work’ of writing the five dramas for next year’s April Workshop: Leaf and Flame- The Foliate Man has been done. There will undoubtedly be minor changes between now and then, there always are and these are usually flagged up in the communal read throughs which will take place at our three remaining monthly meetings.
There…
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+ Greek Myths, Heracles, Hercules, Higher Mind, Journey of the hero, Labours of Hercules, Mystery Schools, myths and spirituality, Silent Eye School, Uncategorized
Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee, part 43 – The Point at the End of the Nose
by Steve Tanham
Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee, part 43 – The Point at the End of the Nose
.Alexandra.
I had seldom seen him him laugh so much, nor so good-naturedly.
The journey to ‘here’ had taken several weeks of thought, and I could – finally – see the care with which he had constructed it. On one level it was infuriating; on another–a much deeper one–I was tempted to say it was infinitely beautiful…
In response and some deference to this, I had spent ages with the makeup. A thin layer of jet-black, supplemented by a slightly opaque lacquer, topped off with a tiny starburst picked out in white pencil. Easy enough, you might think, but it took me four attempts and forty-five minutes to get it right.
It would have looked sensational, on, say… a balloon. On a barrister in a pin-stripe suit, walking hurriedly through the unusually busy streets of Morecambe on a wet Monday morning of the last working week before Christmas, it clearly didn’t. The five minute journey from the car park was a lesson in itself… As humans, we’re not very good with the unusual. We mistrust it… I don’t know whether it’s genetic or societal; but something in us is deeply afraid of that which is different… The end of my nose, for example, on that December day.
When I entered the cafe, he looked up. I think he had detected my change of mood at the end of last week’s meeting. His anxious glance to the door, as I entered, confirmed it. But his face lit up when he took in the visage of the madwoman before him.
“In honour of Rudolf for the colour-blind?” he asked, rocking with mirth in his old wooden chair, which was making ominous creaking noises – Rose was not known for the extravagance of her furniture budget.
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked, mustering innocence and pretending to ignore the curious faces of those around us. Several, for some reason, were regulars at this odd time of seaside day; and for a second which set me blushing, I could have sworn that literally everyone in the cafe was looking at me…
“Bit of a rush this morning, dearie?” asked Rose, as she brought my coffee. “Lend you a mirror if you like?”
I just smiled at her kindly, understanding her taunt and letting the moment unfold and unveil its potential. I suspected that they both knew that – and that Rose had moved from her customary protective stance to one that said, ‘okay then, darling… but, after this, you’re on your own…’
Aware that the ‘flow’ had unspoken power in it, John sipped his coffee and stared at me before speaking.
“So,” he said, softly. “As obvious as the black starburst on the end of your nose?” His composure weakened and he nearly spilt Rose’s carefully prepared latté. “I assume that this magnificent gesture, in the interests of mutual lunacy, is related to a certain Greek Doe?”
“What little gesture?” I retorted. I hadn’t finished with the opening, yet.
He nodded, saying nothing and feeling for the right entry into my mind. The Huntress called Alexandra was still hungry – very hungry.
“Are you saying that there’s something wrong with my appearance?” I asked.
“Not ‘wrong’ with your appearance…” he said. “…simply unusual – though very stylish…” he paused, looking for the right words. “…in its own way.” He was still rocking, though playing by my rules – which had become very important in my quest.
It was time to unveil the script. “I can’t see anything wrong with my nose, anyway?” I queried, looking him straight in the eye. That’s what had taken forty five bloody minutes to get exactly right – I literally couldn’t…
He leaned forward, suddenly conscious that there was a lot more to this than simply Christmas.
“No…” he said. “Of course – how clever!” he sat back and, in the face of my continued silence, I could tell he was thinking on another level about what I had done. “And there is, from your viewpoint, nothing at all unusual about what’s on the end of your nose – you literally can’t see it!”
And there was the heart of it, I thought… I wondered where he would chase the trail next – as Heracles had to, for a full year, while he pursued the elusive Doe…
He spoke in measured tones, “But I… being well intentioned towards you – as you know,” he raised his eyebrows for my confirmation. I gave him nothing. “might point out that I can see something very unusual at the end of your nose!”
“You mean you are aware of it?”
At that, he leaned back and signalled to Rose that we might need more coffee. She had been standing right behind me, and I would like to say that I could feel her grinning at the power-exchange in the dialogue; but that might be fanciful.
“That’s so very good…” he said. “Who knows?”
He had caught it… “Well, I know, that I have an end of nose…” The fresh coffee came, silently. My half drunk one was whisked away, with an intensity that was not hostile. “But, you are telling me that I don’t know all there is to know about it?”
“In the sense that a friendly fellow like me… or Rose might?,” he nodded to his compatriot in the land of the idiots, before continuing. Rose had re-taken her position behind me, it seemed, though I could see her less than I could see the black and white starburst on the end of my nose.
“Babies don’t know they have ends of noses,” I said. “They think the pinkness, glimpsed occasionally, belongs to the world. They don’t realise that it moves with them and not with that world…”
This was gathering pace, nicely, I thought. I continued, “So they have to become aware of their world first, and then they find, much later on, that the end of their nose projects into it but really belongs to them!”
He sat back, beaming at me. “So, we move from awareness, to knowing… to?”
The claws flexed quickly, out and poised. “Why…” I said, finishing my coffee and making him wait. I stood up to go and planted the customary kiss on his head. “… the end of ‘noing’, of course!”
When I had parked the car at Lancaster and taken my reserved seat on the train, I thought of them both – and their astonished faces as I left. I was still chuckling as the train left the urban landscape and emerged into the pale green of a Winter’s morning; but the claws had long retracted.
“Happy Christmas, uncle John,” I whispered; and then silently hugged Rose, too.
———————————————————–
Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee is usually published on Thursdays.
All images and text ©International copyright, The Silent Eye School of Consciousness, 2016.
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Wonderful blog about using house plants to protect against domestic poisonous gases…
Pilea
In recent decades, in the interest of energy efficiency, our homes have become increasingly airtight. Unfortunately, that also means that toxic chemicals commonly used in building materials, home furnishings and household cleaners off-gas and build up within our interiors with the potential of making us sick. The good news is that NASA research found that many commonly grown houseplants not only produce fresh oxygen, they also clean the air of indoor pollutants.
Palm
Formaldehyde, found in virtually all indoor environments, irritates the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose and throat and is linked to asthma. Sources include urea-formaldehyde foam insulation (UFFI), particleboard and pressed wood furniture. UF resins treat paper products (grocery bags, waxed papers, facial tissues and paper towels) and are used as stiffeners, wrinkle resisters, water repellents, fire retardants and adhesive binders in floor coverings, carpet backings and permanent-press clothes.
Fatsia
Trichloroethylene (TCE), a commercial product, is used in…
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Some food for thought…
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It was early December, 2015, in southern San Francisco. Bernie and I were on a week’s holiday in the USA. It was not cold, but was raining, which was good news for drought-ravaged California, as the first sustained rainfall for several years streamed from the skies across the state for most of our visit.
This very British rain did not dampen our spirits, because the primary destination for our trip was housed inside two huge, aircraft-hanger style buildings called the Cow Palace.
Within the two giant halls of the Cow Palace is laid out the most wonderful reconstruction of Dickensian London you could imagine, even down to a London Docklands ‘alley’ making use of the connecting space, where ‘rough folk’ will regale you as you make the dangerous crossing from one hall to the other!
Downloadable map from the Dickens Fair website at http://www.dickensfair.com/general
Following a roller-coaster of a road trip to meet up with some old friends in Sacramento, we had just come to the last two days of our visit to the West Coast and the main reason for being here – the annual Dickens Christmas Fair. We were kindly given visitor tickets by the man who runs the fair, Kevin Patterson. We’ll meet him later…
Mr Dickens was speaking. In a very English voice. Bristling with oratorical skills, Robert Young, who has played Dickens for longer than anyone can remember, was welcoming the ‘early’ group – people like ourselves lucky enough to get tickets to the opening carols and the warm-up, as well as a day full of astonishing costume drama and historical reconstruction… Oh and a lot of fun, too…
As Dickens, Robert was new to us; as Robert Young, he has been a visitor to the UK many times.
It’s the 34th such Fair and something in the order of 6,000 people per day were due to follow our early group through those doors for a journey back in time to a literary twilight zone that is pure magic.
To quote from the event’s webpage ( http://www.dickensfair.com/general ) “The Great Dickens Christmas Fair is a one-of-a-kind holiday adventure into Victorian London – an elaborate party with hundreds of costumed players performing and interacting with patrons in over 120,000 square feet of theatrically-lit music halls, pubs, dance floors, and Christmas shops. It’s a twilight evening in Charles Dickens’ London Town – a city of winding lanes filled with colorful characters from both literature and history. Enticing aromas of roasted chestnuts and hearty foods fill the air. Cries of street vendors hawking their wares ring out above the bustling crowd. Dozens of lamplit shops are filled to overflowing with Christmas gifts. The Dickens Christmas Fair is a treasured Bay Area tradition since 1970 and a splendid way to celebrate the holidays.”
Traditionally, the Fair takes place on five weekends leading up to the weekend before Christmas.
Our ‘early’ welcome talk finished with a flourish of Dickensian characters acting their parts as the day well and truly began… and then, the doors opened into the main event space and the half-world of Mr Dickens’ erudite welcome became the full-blown setting of London Town. No-one new to the event can anticipate the sheer intensity of what follows as you are projected back in time… and into the attentions of hundreds of period-dressed people; so much so that you feel like the ones in odd dress!
Music, dancing and constant cycle of floor-shows
A Tarot reading, perhaps?
Period costume of excellent quality is on sale if you want to join the thousands of fellow guests who already sport it!
We had been advised by Diana Young-Peak, one of our hosts (see below) to head for ‘Mad Sal’s establishment’ as our opening foray. This took us right across the twin spaces of the large halls to the farthest corner, where ladies of dubious repute were lounging outside a salon offering what looked like bawdy entertainment.
Mad Sal’s – enter at your peril!
Bernie and I took our seats as the show began and a rather attractive Mad Sal took centre stage, with her singing team of entertainers around her. They called for volunteers, and, being mid-theatre and in a dark part of the auditorium, I kept quiet and hunkered down in my seat. Sadly, it did little good, as one of Sal’s girls came up behind me and marched me on stage to be seated, with one other victim, on a stool.
Sal began to sing, in an excellent voice, and moved to stand by my stool. As she sang, the word ‘kiss’ graced the verses several times and she seemed to be coming back to it, with more and more emphasis…
Being a slow Englishman in such matters, I began to notice that the entire audience was giggling. I looked up from my inattentive reverie to see Mad Sal standing with one hand on hip and pointing, with the other, to her recalcitrant visitor and directing him to her left cheek! I duly kissed… and was kissed in return, eventually being allowed back to my seat with good natured warmth, at the end of the song. The entire performance, lasting perhaps thirty minutes, was very professionally done, and great fun.
After such excitement, we needed a drink. There were several hostelries in the twin halls, so we made our way to one which, in addition to alcohol, offered tea, coffee and herbal drinks. Duly restored, we continued our explorations… It was still only late morning.
A timeless classic – Punch and Judy
I had instructions from my co-directors in the Silent Eye to try to photograph the Punch and Judy show, which we knew was part of the Fair. The lighting was difficult, but the lady and gentleman running the show were very amendable to my moving around, using shelves as tripods and generally being a damned nuisance… I tipped them handsomely at the end of the show, while the audience of a hundred or so children were departing, and they let me take some posed shots in return. Some of these may feature in one of Sue Vincent and Stuart France’s forthcoming graphic novels…
The everlasting appeal of a show whose strange origins fade into history…
Our three wonderful hosts: Left, Robert Young (Dickens); centre, Diana Young (Writer of the Saucy French Postcards Tableaux Vivants); right, Kevin Patterson, who along with Mrs Patterson, runs the show.
We were getting hungry, and a very special treat awaited us. Kevin Patterson and his wife run the Fair through their company Red Barn Productions. Kevin had invited us to afternoon tea with Diana and Robert in one of the period tearooms. Soon, the five of us were tucking into sandwiches, crumpets, cakes and tea… heaven. To follow that, Kevin offered to show us a very secret place within the Fair. Kevin’s father had created the original event – known then as the Renaissance Fair, and located in Marin County, north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
As a tribute to his father’s memory – and the latter’s sense of humour, Kevin has created a secret room at the show, known as ‘The Opium Den’.
Kevin’s tribute to his Dad – the ‘Opium Den’. His father’s picture hangs on the wall of the Den.
We were treated to a cocktail in the succulent interior of the Opium Den; and enjoyed its seductive atmosphere. Its location within the Fair is a well-kept secret.
Queen Victoria and her husband the Prince Consort watch a display of swordsmanship, ending in a royal toast.
One of the delights of the Fair is the appearance of groups of actors playing related parts. You can be strolling along or having a drink, when everyone stands because members of a royal family, such as Queen Victoria and her entire entourage, are going past in procession – everyone takes this very seriously!
One of the most popular and intimate features of the Fair is the series of readings given in one of several reading rooms throughout the day by the great man, himself. Robert Young as Dickens will begin reading from one of the books, then, suddenly, will stand and begin to act the part of the chosen character – very much in the original style of the author, himself.
We spent the rest of that afternoon wandering, drinking tea (well, me, anyway – I was driving) and generally chilling out. Something rather more ‘adult’ was booked for the early evening ahead…
I mentioned that Diana Young-Peak was one of our hosts. She is also the writer of one of the most popular attractions of the Fair. Each year, Diana creates a “Saucy French Postcards Tableaux Vivants” show which operates on three levels: the audience; the front stage, populated by the three main characters in the story, who act as the narrators; and the backstage action, which features, at best, partly dressed figures drawn from classical mythology. Frequently members of the backstage are naked, or nearly so, but always tastefully posed… The backstage actors operate in a part of the stage which is separated from the front section by a ‘scrim’ screen, made from semi-transparent material that adds a further ‘classical’ feel to the whole show. In a time-honoured prohibition, the scantily-clad, whose time exposure for each shot is brief, may not move…
The whole ‘saucy’ feel is not subtly constructed, and the envisaged titillation can be deceptive in its delivery… and its effect. As Horatio and Letitia Everard, assisted by their housekeeper, our well-heeled married couple discuss current events in their own lives with reference to various classical scenes. The viewer’s eyes and ears are drawn from the innuedo-ridden Mr and Mrs dialogue to the ‘still life’ of the various human bodies assembled for the next snapshot of what each of the married pair is really thinking…
It should be just funny, and rude… but it’s not just that; it’s also really beautiful…
The naked or scantily-dressed forms behind the scrim are arranged with incredible artistry – often holding agonising positions for the long few seconds in which we get to gaze at the intensity of the twenty or so people who are literally ‘giving their all’ to support Diana’s creation. It’s worth the price of admission, alone. That it comes, included, at the end of each wonderful and well-filled is amazing. I took lots of vivid images, but they’re all in my head… photography, as you’d expect, is strictly prohibited, to protect the identities of those brave and dedicated players behind the veil.
Diana speaks of the spiritual egregore of the show. It’s not a word often used outside the esoteric community. It refers to the collective spirit or soul of a gathering, an organisation or endeavour, or even an idea whose time has come; but one in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The Founder – Ron Patterson, Kevin’s Father
The Dickens Fair has an egregore. It is a very powerful but subtle one. It is driven by hundreds of people who give their time and presence, freely in most cases, to bring the Fair to new life each year. It’s very much their home–and this is their Christmas…
Treat yourself to a trip to this astonishing event… put it on your bucket list. You’ll not be disappointed.
©Copyright Stephen Tanham, 2016. Picture of the Cow Palace exterior taken from the Fair’s website.
Sun in Gemini 
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